The repertoire of safe and cost-effective vaccines for generation of mucosal immunity against a variety of agents is limited. The leading bacterial cause of human gastrointestinal disease worldwide is Campylobacter. Bacterial gastroenteritis continues to pose a significant threat to the general public in the United States and abroad for the foreseeable future. Infections with Campylobacter jejuni occur more frequently than the more publicized infections from Salmonella species or Escherichia coil O157:H7. The actual burden of illness of Campylobacter gastroenteritis nationwide is 500-850 infections/100,000 persons per year.
Not only is Campylobacter the leading cause of bacterial gastroenteritis, but C. jejuni has been associated with the neuropathological disease Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). This life-threatening disease may be an immune response to ganglioside-like structures on certain C. jejuni strains leading to an autoimmune response against nerve cells. Although GBS is the most important chronic sequelae, Campylobacter infection is also associated with a reactive arthritis, which may progress to Reiter's syndrome.
Vaccination against Campylobacter has had limited success using killed whole-cell or protein based vaccines. In addition, there are concerns regarding the development of Guillain-Barre syndrome or other sequelae from killed whole-cell vaccination. A successful vaccine would need to be cost-effective, safe, orally effective, and be produced in large quantities in a very short time-period. At the present time there is no such vaccine.